In Rightful Place (Luke 1:26-33 Jeff Kliewer)

I want to say good morning and it's awesome to be here. We have, this is one of those times of the year that is just uplifting. It's special. Pastor Jeff is going to really, I think the Holy Spirit really spoke through you this morning.

I'm assuming he hasn't left, so he's going to speak through you again. But we rejoice in a way at this time of the year that the rest of the world just does not understand, and they cannot understand.

Going through the neighborhoods and seeing lights and everything, it just is, it's an uplifting feeling. But if that's as far as it goes, well, that's as far as it goes. You see, we who have bent the knee to the Lord and accepted Him in faith, we have something, we have a real reason for being excited about this time of year.

The Fear of the Lord and True Confidence

I'm going to open us up in Proverbs chapter 14, verse 26. In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence. I'm going to say that again. In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence. There are so many things that we get to enjoy, and they're blessings from God.

We get to spend time with family. Tomorrow morning, a lot of us are going to celebrate Christmas. We're going to hand out gifts and all this other kind of stuff. But if you really want to find strong confidence, make your heart turning into the fear of the Lord, and that means seeking after Him.

Scripture is going to teach us a lot of things, and one of the things that it teaches us is that man, by nature, is in submission to the lies of Satan. That all started way back when in the garden, and because of that, we fall short because his lies fall short.

The path that Satan wants to put you on does not satisfy. In fact, it leads to ruin. But Scripture also teaches us that although man fell in sin, this was not something that God was unaware of. In fact, before the founding of the world, he planned that his son would come.

He planned that, Jeff, I think, I'm going to give him a little spoiler. December 25th, we're celebrating Christmas. That's a spoiler. He planned that all the way, and he planned that as we accept his message and turn to him, our confidence would be true.

Our confidence would be unshaken, and that we are restored in fellowship with the creator of the universe and our Lord and Savior. I just have a couple of announcements for you. One of them, we are completing our time of putting together our nominations as the congregation for the elder and for the deacons.

Emails have gone out. You can complete your nominations online. If you haven't done that and you like paper, we do have paper. It's available in the foyer. So if you want, you can pick one of these up, perhaps not while Jeff is preaching, but maybe after.

Should they stay for your sermon? Okay. You can fill this out and just turn it in. There's a box, or you can do it online. You have the rest of the week to do that. Please take that seriously. The only other announcement I'm going to make is please come back and join with us at four o 'clock as we have our candlelight service celebrating the coming Messiah.

Let's turn to prayer. Lord, we rejoice in your presence this morning. Today, as we anticipate celebrating the coming of your son, we acknowledge our need. We acknowledge your love and we acknowledge the fulfillment of prophecy as the Messiah is born.

The world is seeking to find fulfillment in things, yet our fulfillment is in you and our hope is in you. Be with us, we pray this morning. May our hearts be devoted to you. May your spirit guide us. May our lives be a testimony to those around us.

Lord, we do continue to pray for those in need, those in times of grief. This holiday season, this Christmas season can be specifically difficult. We lift those around us and around the world, and we continue to specifically list your people, our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Be with Pastor Jeff, we pray, as he brings your word, that your spirit speaks to him. Prepare our hearts to be opened to hear and to respond in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's sing together.

Joy to the world, the Savior's come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns.

Let all their songs ebb off the oxhills. And repeat the sounding joy. Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. Joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy. And make the nations proud.

And wonders of His love. We are so thankful to be together and worshiping with him at his throne. Let's sing together the first Noel. Let's bow our heads and pray this morning. Lord, we are grateful and thankful that you are the king of kings and the lord of lords, the king of heaven and of earth.

Today we stand and worship you while our hearts and our heads are bowed before you. You are the king of kings, you are the prince of peace, the wonderful counselor and our redeemer. We bring everything to you because you are due all the praise and all the worship this morning.

The skies of Bethlehem appeared a star. Angels sang to lonely shepherds, making truth travel from afar. From heaven on their knees, they bowed before the humble prince of peace. Offering of worship to my king deserves the praises that I sing.

Jesus, may you receive the honor that you're due. Lord, I bring an offering to you. To the glory of your love is no shadow in your presence. So I dare to stand before your throne. All the way through your mercy, Lord, I come.

Worship to my king deserves the praises that I sing. Jesus, may you receive the honor that you're due. Lord, I bring an offering to you. Let's sing that again. I bring an offering of worship to my king.

No one on earth deserves the praises that I sing. Jesus, may you receive the honor that you're due. Oh, Lord, I bring an offering to you. You may be seated.

Making Room for Jesus at Christmas

Let's pray. Lord, we are so thankful for Christmas. We're so thankful, Father, that you sent your only son, born to the virgin, laid in a manger so humble and lowly, and yet the king of kings and Lord of lords.

And now, Lord, as we open your word, we pray that you would turn our hearts to make room for Jesus this Christmas. That we would not be distracted. That we would not miss the point, Lord, that all of our affection and all of our attention would be given to that prophet, priest, king, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

Amen. For Christmas morning, Christian families try to get everything in rightful place, don't we? We want everything perfect. You got to clean the house. You got to make everything look right. We like to put up lights.

When we, when my wife and I and our kids, we moved from Philadelphia, we were coming from a place that had only one tree on the entire city block where we lived. And so moving to the suburbs, I didn't know how to decorate trees.

And I was trying to make it look good. But what I did is I wrapped this tree in Christmas lights and then I went up the branches and then I climbed up the tree and I'm throwing lights in every which way.

And by the end of it, you could go out to the curb and look at it and everybody would see something different. It no longer looked like a tree. It was like one of those Rorschach tests, you know, the inkblots, where you look at it and you can see like a dinosaur or like a bicycle or whatever.

It was quite an adventure, but it wasn't really in place. And my wife was very gracious and patient with me. And then eventually we replaced that with things that are more in order. And it outlines the house and it's right.

It's in place. And she's very good with the ornaments on the tree. She's an expert. She has an ornament for everything commemorating our lives, from our wedding, the birth of the children, even children that we lost in miscarriage that are now in heaven.

We have ornaments on the tree to remember them. We have a little church from 2016 when I became pastor here to remember that special moment as well. And so each ornament tells a story and it's in its place on the tree.

Everything just right. I also like to keep Christmas paper wrap in its rightful place. I am one of those guys that when the kid opens the present, as soon as the paper hits the ground, I'm ready to pounce.

And I just have to hold, is anybody here like that? You're just wanting to keep things in order, keep things clean. And as soon as the paper hits the ground, you want to grab it and stuff it in a trash bag.

Now, the rightful place of that Christmas paper is strewn about on Christmas morning. You can just leave it there. You have permission. That's its rightful place. Now, listen, just as clutter needs to go for Christmas, so the clutter around our hearts needs to be removed.

If you're just organizing for Christmas and making everything right, but you're not getting your heart right before Jesus, it's like being on a cruise ship and the ship is going down and you're organizing the furniture on the deck of the cruise ship.

You need to go get on a lifeboat. And that lifeboat, that rescue is Jesus himself. We need to get our hearts right and put our hearts in rightful place for Christmas. There was one husband and wife who said, Christmas has been very special in our lives.

Even during our earliest married years, when we did not practice our faith. And that is the point. Even then, Christmas was magical and precious and an opportunity from God to turn back to him, which we eventually did.

For this young couple, Christmas was something they just did outwardly, but eventually it became inward. Okay, Christmas, I think providentially falls when the length of days has just reached the shortest and now they start to get longer again, right?

I tracked that by the way. Is anybody else like me? You see that coming and then you're just waiting for the longer days. I think God providentially designed for Christmas to be here as a fresh start.

And then the new year comes around. It is a chance for us to return to our first love, to put Christ in the place where he belongs, his rightful place enthroned as Lord over our lives. So Christmas is this adjustment for us.

If everything else is in place, but Christ is off the throne of your heart, you've missed the point. Christmas reorients us and gets things in their rightful place. Today, we're going to read Luke 1, 26 to 33.

Luke 1, it's part of the Christmas story. I want us to focus on putting Christ in his rightful place. He is the prophet, the priest, the king. And where do kings belong, but on a throne, the throne of our hearts.

We need a little background before we come into the passage today. And that is a reminder that in Israel, there were three anointed offices, prophet, priest and king, prophet, priest, king. All of them were anointed.

They had a special role. The king was not the priest. They came from different tribes. And if a king tried to do priestly work as Saul did, he would be rebuked. Prophet, priest and king were separate offices.

But what did all of the prophets, all of the priests and all of the kings of Israel have in common? They all fell short of the glory of God. You see the prophets, the priests and the kings were themselves fallen sinners who existed in their role to point us to one greater than themselves.

A true prophet who speaks not just for God, but as God. A true priest who can actually atone for sin. A true king who rules not just in Jerusalem, but over all the universe. You hear nowadays about aliens that people are seeing.

Have you heard some of these news stories? Aliens everywhere. I think what people are most likely seeing there are just demons. Some demonic thing that people are mistaking as an alien. But I'll tell you this.

If there is life on the most distant planet in the universe, Christ is king of kings and lord of lords over that planet too. He is the king, not just in this time and place, but over all time and space.

So this is the role of the prophets, priests and kings. It is to point us to a greater prophet, the prophet, a greater priest, a greater king. So let's read now Luke 1, 26 to 33. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, oh, favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. There are three ideas that I want us to take from the passage this morning.

One is that there are prophets who go before Jesus, but Jesus is the greater prophet. Two, there are priests that mediate and angels also mediate, but Jesus is the great priest. And then lastly, he is the great king.

All these others fall short of the glory of God, but they're pointing us to him. My desire as we hear the word today is that if anybody is here this morning who does not yet know the Lord, you will see in this text reason to believe, reason to bend your knee in allegiance to the king of kings, that you will be a believer through the word of God.

This word is perfect, cannot be broken. The scripture is complete and we will see in the text such amazing detail to help us believe and to turn our hearts back to Jesus Christ. So first, the prophet John the Baptist has an essential place in Jesus's story.

Have you ever noticed in the book of Luke that there is this interwoven story between John's birth and Jesus's birth? Luke goes back and forth, John's and then Jesus's, John's and then Jesus's, back and forth, they're intertwined because John the Baptist has an essential place in the story.

I want to take a moment to look at John the Baptist and see how these are intertwined. Because notice in verse 26, how does that verse begin? In the sixth month. Six months from what? What's the starting point?

Well, you need a little context as you go back in Luke 1, it's the sixth month from when John the Baptist was conceived supernaturally because his mom was very elderly and passed childbearing years and yet John was conceived.

And this reference to the sixth month means it's been six months since that event. Very important. A whole sermon could be preached off to the side right here to say that by marking time from conception, not from birth, we have evidence that life begins at conception.

This is how it's marked. And in verse 44, we see Jesus in the womb of Mary and you have John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb. And when they come into the same room and Mary speaks, what does John the Baptist do from the womb?

He rejoices. This is a living human being from conception. There was a politician who was asked in a debate, when does life begin? And he deferred and said, that's above my pay grade. It's not above God's pay grade.

When God speaks, we can trust every word that he says. Life begins at conception. It is the sixth month from conception at this point. Now, I want to just point out something because many of us have heard those who oppose the Christian message.

They will say Christianity just adopted pagan ideas and the rituals of Christianity, especially around Christmas, are nothing but pagan in origin. They'll say there's no Christian reason to believe in December 25th as the time of Christmas.

Well, notice something. We are told in verse 26 that it's the sixth month from conception. At what point in time did Zechariah receive the vision from the angel? It was during a high holy day. Most likely, as the early church had thought, it was during the festival of booths or perhaps Yom Kippur, the main day of atonement, right?

This was the starting point. If you were to look, you can Google it later. When was Yom Kippur in 2023, this year? It fell on September 25th, September 25th. And that's very often the case that this high holy day, when the incense is offered, will be in the end of September or early October.

Now, if you take six months from September 25th, you arrive October, November, December, January, February, March 25th. And if Jesus is conceived here six months after John the Baptist, go from March 25th, how long does a pregnancy take?

Nine months, March 25th, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 25th. Do you see why the early church chose December 25th? It had nothing to do with paganism. In fact, they'll say, very often they'll say, the pagan holiday of Saturnalia fell near the winter solstice and Christians have adopted that tradition.

Saturnalia was December 6th. So people will repeat this kind of nonsense, thinking that they have reason to oppose Christianity. But in fact, and in truth, every detail of God's design was prophetically foretold ahead of time so that we would know the truth.

And never do we see that more clearly than here in the sixth month. Because what God is showing us by this is that there is a forerunner whose name is John the Baptist. And his story is intertwined with the story of Jesus Christ.

Turn back with me to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah is one of the prophets and all of the prophets give testimony to Jesus Christ. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus Christ. These prophets speak for God, but they themselves fall short.

John the Baptist, although the greatest among men, according to Jesus in Matthew 11, even he had a moment of doubt where he sent to ask, is Jesus really the Messiah? He was a prophet, but he fell short.

Likewise, all of the prophets fall short of the glory of God. They're pointing to one greater than themselves. Amos will say, listen, Amos 8 -11, a time is coming when God will send a famine in the land.

Not a famine of hunger for food or thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. There is coming a period of time where there are no prophets, a famine of prophecy. It turns out that Amos' prophecy of a coming famine of prophecy actually occurred in time.

The book of Malachi ends the Old Testament and after Malachi, there are what is called the 400 silent years. 400 years without a prophet. Interestingly, the last prophecy in the Old Testament foretells one like Elijah, who will turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, lest when Messiah comes, he strikes the earth in utter destruction.

So after this 400 years of silence, there will be again another prophet. If he doesn't come and make things straight, then when Messiah comes, everybody's gonna get wiped out. But God will send an Elijah and Jesus will say, if you can accept it, that Elijah is none other than John the Baptist.

So now look at Isaiah chapter 40. With that in mind, knowing that there will be a period of famine of prophecy, now Isaiah foresees the future. Isaiah 41 and following. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, the forgiveness of sin in Jesus, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

That time of judgment is coming to an end. It's enough, but look at this. Verse three. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up.

Every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. There will come a prophet in the wilderness. His name is John the Baptist. He will be wearing camel's hair and eating locusts and honey, living in the wilderness and declaring repentance to Israel.

Come, make the way of the Lord. Make a highway for the Lord. Even the last prophet to prophecy Christ was himself prophesied. Isaiah foretells the coming of a final announcer, the last Old Testament prophet.

John the Baptist will make the way of the Lord straight for him. Verse five. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. This is Christ, the Shekinah glory. He is the glory of God. Word made flesh full of grace and truth dwelling among us.

And all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Church, Isaiah will go on to say, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. When God says, thus says the Lord, it will come to pass.

The 400 silent years that Amos prophesied will happen. And then God in his time has in place like a bun in the oven for six months already cooking. Right there in place, the forerunner, the announcer of Isaiah 40, of Malachi three, one to five, of Malachi four, five and six.

The prophet was himself prophesied. Don't miss this because go back now to Luke chapter one, verse 26. The story of Jesus is interwoven with the story of John. That there would be two witnesses. In John chapter four, Jesus will declare himself to be the Messiah, but he also appeals to the testimony of John the Baptist.

This is how we know that Jesus really is who he claimed to be because his story is prophetic and everything foretold of him comes to pass. John the Baptist is at the ready. So John the Baptist is a prophet and what do they do to prophets?

They kill the prophets. They stone those who God has sent to them. Isaiah himself will be sawn in two. John the Baptist will be beheaded. Here in the Luke story, we have the birth narrative of the joy that this child born to Elizabeth in her old age, removing her reproach that she felt ashamed.

Now she'll have a son and she's delighting. She in her old age will not live to see the beheading of John the Baptist, but Mary will. And so many godly mothers in Jerusalem will grieve the murder of John the Baptist.

And the great and greater prophet was foretold by Moses, Deuteronomy 18, 15. Greater than Moses, there's coming the prophet, the one who speaks as God and they will kill him too. Give him myrrh. Myrrh is for burial.

As we learned from the gospel of John, it is one of the spices that they would use to cover the body of those who were killed for Jewish burial. When Jesus in his birth was given gold, frankincense and myrrh, the myrrh represents him as a prophet rejected and buried.

The incense represents him as a priest to which will now turn and the gold represents him as a king. So let's look now at the second point. Jesus is the greater prophet. He is also the greater priest.

Jesus the Greater Priest

I love the humanness of Mary in these verses. In verse 28, he came to her. That's Gabriel, this glowing majestic angel comes and says, greetings, how would you react? Oh, favored one. Now that's good.

He's saying you're favored. The Lord is with you. But notice verse 29. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. Do you see her humanness? Her fallenness, even in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, Eve would have no fear of an angel.

The fear comes from the fall. We're all fallen in Adam and in Eve. And therefore as sinners, we fear even the righteous angel. But my point here that I want you to understand is that there's only so much that the angel can do for her.

He comforts her. Look what he says in verse 30. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

There is only so much the angel can do for her. He can comfort her. And surely God sent her a sense of peace to calm her when the angel said that. But the angel cannot remove her sin or ours. There's only so much the angel can do.

The angel cannot bring sinful people like us to God for that we need a priest. And notice what it says in verse 31. Behold, you will conceive in your womb. There must be a human born of woman, born under the law.

An angel cannot bring us to God. He cannot mediate. For this, we need a priest because only one who is truly human can represent us and be substituted for us as a sacrifice on our behalf. He must be fully human.

Look at the next verse 32. He also must be God, the son of the most high. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high. He must be human and he must be divine. Son of man, son of God to bridge this gap.

The angel can't do it. Zechariah was a priest, but in his fallenness as a Levite, when he heard the good news, what did he do? He doubted the angel and the angel struck his mouth. He was mute for nine months.

The Levitical priests couldn't do it. They couldn't remove sin. They could offer animal sacrifices, but they couldn't take away human sin. We needed a priest. In the book of Hebrews, we learn that this is precisely what Jesus is.

Hebrews 2 .16, for surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. That is those who have faith like Abraham are helped not by an angel, but by one of our own. Hebrews 4 .15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

Picture weak Mary there in her fear, trembling before the angel. The angel cannot do much for her. She needs one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. She needs a priest. In fact, Peter will tell us that angels like Gabriel, they long to look into this mystery.

That God would take on flesh, be born to a virgin and dwell among us as a man, a human. He did not become an angel to save angels and the angels just marvel at this. This baby born in Bethlehem was truly human, born to the Virgin Mary.

And he came to do this to bring sinful men like us to God. He's the priest. Every other priest fell short of the glory of God. He is the glory of God. He is that priest. Now we don't have time to go down this rabbit trail, but I'll point you to it.

Zechariah was a priest from the tribe of Levi. Jesus came from the tribe of Judah. Priests are to come from Levi. So how can he even be a priest? The author to the Hebrews tells us the answer to that in Hebrews chapter seven.

So I commend a study to you. There are only three passages that really refer to this. Genesis 14, Psalm 110 at the middle of the Bible and then Hebrews seven. It shows that Jesus actually is a priest from a different order, a higher order than the Levitical priesthood.

He is what is called the priest according to the order of Melchizedek, the righteous king. So he is both king and priest of the most high God. Jesus is that priest. But this brings us now to the final point.

Jesus the Greater King

Jesus is not only the prophet that you must listen to, the priest that brings you to God. He is the king of kings. He is the king and every other king who ever lived from Saul who lost the throne to David on down, each of them fell short of the glory of God.

But Jesus is that righteous king, that perfect king to whom every other king pointed. In fact, he's more than an earthly king. He's a heavenly king. He will sit on David's throne here in glory, but even now he is at the right hand of the father.

C .S. Lewis is eminently quotable, tremendous author in terms of literary talent. He put it this way, once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole. World here is a king laid in a manger that as he lay there is governing the entire universe.

Never cease being God. Although flesh was added to him, he is the king that Jerusalem waited on. He is in fact, the king of the whole world and of the whole universe of heaven as well as earth. Turn with me for the earthly line of the king to a very important passage, 2 Samuel 7.

All Christians should know this passage because it is the Davidic covenant. 2 Samuel 7, 12 to 16, and then we'll come back and finish up. I deliberately don't mark the pages so I have to find it too. Give you time to find it.

2 Samuel 7, verses 12 to 14. We'll actually go on to 16. David has desired here to build the temple and Nathan the prophet will come and give him this word from God. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you.

Notice this, most important part of my message here. Who shall come from your body? Do you see that? An offspring for David that shall come from David's body and I will establish his kingdom. There's some commentary in verses 13 and following about Solomon needing rebuke, but then it continues on in verse 16.

And your house, listen, and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established, how long? Forever. Now, King Saul was the predecessor of David, but because he was rejected, his line no longer brought forth kings.

Instead, God put a man after his own heart, David on the throne. The promise is the coming king whose reign will be forever must come from David's own body. Now we know from the spiritual side, that Jesus has always been the son of God.

Psalm 110 verse one, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. So the Lord said to David's Lord, David's Lord is Jesus. The father said to Jesus, so Jesus is both David's Lord and back to our texts, his descendant from his own body.

The king must come from David's own body. Now, Matthew will trace the lineage of Jesus from Abraham, 14 generations, David, 14 generations, Jesus. Have you ever noticed in that line of kings, the name Jeconiah, just before the exile into Babylon.

The name Jeconiah appears in Matthew's genealogy, but I want to tell you just how precise and reliable is the word of God so that you can trust that Jesus really is king of kings and Lord of lords. Jeremiah the prophet said this about Jeconiah, Jeremiah 22, 28 to 30.

You can look it up later. He says of Jeconiah, in fact, he calls him Coniah. It's like a shortening nickname. You can call him Coney if you want. Jeconiah the king, Coniah is told in Jeremiah 22, 30 that you shall be considered as if childless.

None of your offspring will hold that scepter. None of your offspring will be the king. You see a problem? Matthew's recounting Jeconiah in the lineage of Jesus, but there was a prophecy in Jeremiah chapter 22, verse 30, that Jeconiah cannot be in the Messiah's train in that line.

And so you say, wait a minute, is there error in this Bible? Is this Bible less than perfect? How is Jeconiah in the genealogy? You want me to tell you or just leave you hanging? It is because Luke chapter three, especially in verse 31, tells us the genealogy of Jesus through Mary.

And that genealogy goes from David to Nathan, not to Solomon. What we have in Matthew's genealogy is the legal right passed through the father, but not the biological line. God saw fit to show that Joseph, as was supposed to be the biological father, he was not the biological father.

That's the point. When Jeremiah 22, 30 says it can't come through the line of Jeconiah biologically, the answer is it didn't. Jesus is not the biological son of Joseph. Jesus is the biological son of Mary.

That's the line that it passed through. Isn't that interesting? And so Jeremiah 22, 30 is actually true. Absolutely true. And we have recorded two genealogies, one through Mary and the other through Joseph.

What's even more significant to that is that the reason why these genealogies, how many of you study genealogies? Maybe some of you do. You know how the Mormons have made that, they like to baptize for the dead.

They have made ancestry .com. And people can go and research who comes from who, and they like to follow the genealogy. Nothing wrong with doing that. You can look into the past. But I'll tell you what ancestry .com cannot tell you, and what no person who rejects the Messiahship of Jesus can tell you is the line from David to anybody living today.

Because in 70 AD, the genealogy, the records that were kept in the temple were destroyed by fire. And before those records were destroyed, God saw fit to inspire Matthew before 70 AD to take those records and write down the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph.

And he inspired Luke to take those genealogies and write down and show that Jesus comes from David's own body. And then it was almost like God just providentially said, now that we have this recorded, I'm going to destroy all of the genealogical records in the temple so that if any other pretender would come and claim to be the Messiah, they have nothing to draw upon to prove their case.